Even though the author is using all sorts of fancy graphs, the fundamental fact remains that the US is spending a lot more on healthcare than almost any country, while expected life span of its citizens is lower than that of similar countries.
The author mentions several possible causes for the higher morbidity such as obesity, smoking, drug use, car accidents and violence. Other countries spend a fair deal of their healthcare budget on prevention. This appears to be pretty inpopular in the US, because many regard it as a waste of government money. I think this is one of main reasons why the US is doing so badly.
If you could design an intervention that makes people less fat, more active, etc. that would certainly make a big difference. But I don't think such an intervention exists.
Yes, they do. We have a program here in the Netherlands that is targeted towards kids from lower economics groups. It has shown some promising results.
The title of the 3rd paper you mention is Greater Use Of Preventive Services In U.S. Health Care Could Save Lives At Little Or No Cost. It seems to suggest that some measures are effective.
Also I am a bit amazed at how narrow the US appears to interpret public health. It is almost all just about checkups. Here we have a much broader definition. For example, information campaigns play an important role in most public health campaigns.
An example is pretty agressive anti-smoking campaign. Tobacco companies can no longer use their own logo's on their products but must use some pretty horrible pictures instead. Smoking is forbidden in many places, including bars and restaurants. The price of tobacco products is astronomical. Overall it appears to be working. We consider this part of public health, but it does not seem to fit in one of the papers you mention.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 15.3 ms ] threadThe author mentions several possible causes for the higher morbidity such as obesity, smoking, drug use, car accidents and violence. Other countries spend a fair deal of their healthcare budget on prevention. This appears to be pretty inpopular in the US, because many regard it as a waste of government money. I think this is one of main reasons why the US is doing so badly.
No effect: https://www.cochrane.org/CD009009/EPOC_general-health-checks...
No effect: https://www.nber.org/papers/w23413
Potential 0.2% savings in the US: https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/abs/10.1377/hlthaff.2008.0...
This one assumes $100k/QALY (an absurd number) and finds about a dozen preventive care items (out of 500+) are cost-effective: https://www.rwjf.org/content/dam/farm/reports/issue_briefs/2...
If you could design an intervention that makes people less fat, more active, etc. that would certainly make a big difference. But I don't think such an intervention exists.
The title of the 3rd paper you mention is Greater Use Of Preventive Services In U.S. Health Care Could Save Lives At Little Or No Cost. It seems to suggest that some measures are effective.
Also I am a bit amazed at how narrow the US appears to interpret public health. It is almost all just about checkups. Here we have a much broader definition. For example, information campaigns play an important role in most public health campaigns.
An example is pretty agressive anti-smoking campaign. Tobacco companies can no longer use their own logo's on their products but must use some pretty horrible pictures instead. Smoking is forbidden in many places, including bars and restaurants. The price of tobacco products is astronomical. Overall it appears to be working. We consider this part of public health, but it does not seem to fit in one of the papers you mention.